Houston Hall

222 West Houston Street | West Village | built 1920

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1877

    John Nichol sells a Downing Street stable and the foundry behind it to David I. Christie and Charles H. See

    In 1877 John Nichol sold two neighboring properties, a three-story building at 62 Downing Street and the one-story former Hammersley Foundry building behind it, to David I. Christie and Charles H. See. The pair joined them internally and apparently ran them as a stable. A mortgage sale in 1873 had earlier disposed of the horses, coaches, hearses and harnesses of the previous livery owner.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1897

    February 27

    Police raid the Unique Club after its proprietor refuses a detective's demand for protection money

    In the 1890s part of the building housed the Unique Club, a social club for local Black New Yorkers run by Thomas Jones. Jones said Detective John J. Gerrity demanded $20 a month for protection and then $5 more, and Jones refused. The club was raided on the night of February 27, 1897, and 13 men were arrested for gambling. A judge freed 12 of them but held Jones, while calling the extortion charges against Gerrity very serious.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1928

    December

    Firestone Tire & Rubber leases the buildings for a service store

    The Christie family sold the properties to the Enarem Realty Corporation in 1927 after owning them for nearly fifty years. The following December the new owners leased them to the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company for $6,000 a year, and a renovation the next year created a garage and one of Firestone's New York service stores. The upper floors on Downing Street may have been removed then. The store stayed for decades, and King Bear Auto Service ran it by 1981.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 2013

    February

    Heartland Brewery's owners open Houston Hall, a 500-person beer hall in the old parking garage

    A 2003 renovation had readied the former garage for use as an eating and drinking establishment, and by 2013 it was Houston Hall, a beer hall from the owners of Heartland Brewery. The New York Times reported on February 27, 2013 that it could hold up to 500 people and was styled like Tammany-era New York, with faded signs, rusticated brick walls and period props. The critic Brian Sloan called it Disney does Five Points.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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